Posts in category AutoPilot

Last year we went on a road trip to Croatia. Of course, we took the Tesla for this. I also made a blog about this, which you can find here.

After that trip, both the kids and my wife were so impressed by the country, they wanted to come back again this year. So, majority rules and our destination for this year was quickly set. It wasn’t even questioned whether or not to take the Tesla again!

Going back to the same country and visiting some of the same sceneries and vacation homes, I couldn’t just write another blog post about more or less the same. So, this time I decided to create a video about it, which you can find below.

Part 1 covers our trip from home to Dubrovnik, with scenery from the trip, but also our day trips to the Plitvice Lakes, Dubrovnik itself and Kotor, Montenegro. Enjoy!

In part 2 we head back home from Dubrovnik, but stop along the way at Omis, Trogir, Zadar, the Kornati Islands and Krka National Park in Croatia. We also stayed in Postojna in Slovenia, where we visited the largest caves in Europe and the largest cave castle in the world.
This time we traveled 4697km and drove through 9 different countries in total!

If this article has inspired you to buy a Tesla, you can use my referral link http://ts.la/steven1007 to get €1.000 or $1,000 discount AND free supercharging for the life of your car.

What happens if you put 2 crazy Tesla guys together with an idea to do something fun? You get a new world record!

So, a couple of months ago, before I got my P100D delivered, I was already playing with the idea to break the world record of the longest trip in and EV on a single charge. That record was first set by Bjørn Nyland when he took a P85D for a 728.7km spin. A second guy apparently took an 85D on an 880km trip, but admitted having a big downhill section as well, so kudos to the guy doing that, but it is a little bit of cheating IMHO. But that is my personal opinion and you may think otherwise. In either case, we would aim higher than both these records.

My first line of thinking was “this is going to be a piece of cake”, because we have a big battery. But when doing a few test runs, it turns out to be a lot harder to get the power consumption so low you can actually drive these vast distances. Of course, I had the performance wheels and tires at that time, so that was a disadvantage in power consumption, but by how much? I’m also driving a Performance version, which is supposed to be less efficient. Or is it? I’ll come back to that later…

I also had to wait for just the right circumstances, so when I finally got my car in early March, that was definitely not the right time. I was also not planning on doing this alone and luckily a good friend, former colleague and Model X driver, Joeri Cools, was interested in this challenge.

First of all, we had to find a route that would be suitable for the attempt. A route that is as flat as possible, has little to no traffic, no intersections and no traffic lights. That would be ideal. However, we do live in Belgium and on regular roads there is no 10km stretch without any of those. So, that limits the options already. After some searching on Google Maps and Streetview, we arrived at the route below. After that, we fixed a date, based on the weather forecast and I went in search of some 19″ rims and Michelin Primacy tires, which should be the optimal combination.

Our starting point was at a 22kW charger, which would also be our finish, to make sure we can get charged up again once we’re done with the challenge. From there we drove a small section of road that lead to our main “track”, being a 26km closed loop. Although it might be more beneficial to keep driving straight and preferable with a tail wind, our approach had the advantage that we could learn from each round. By the time we finished the attempt, we knew perfectly how to take every turn and roundabout to make sure we drove with the least possible consumption. And we also got to compare each lap at different temperatures, since we’d be driving through the night and the whole following day.

The first few rounds we were really looking at all the different options and what they meant for our power consumption. Of course, A/C was out of the question, but would using the fan only be more efficient than cracking the windows slightly to get some fresh air? Would folding the mirrors be more efficient? What is the optimum speed to drive at? Etc.

You would be surprised to find out that 40kph is actually the most efficient speed. Both 38kph and 42kph already showed quite a difference in consumption. We were definitely not expecting that. As for the other questions, we did learn a lot about driving economically, but we’ll keep that o ourselves for now and let the other potential nut cases figure that out on their own :-).

Since we would be driving really slow all the time, we actually put a “TEST” sign on the back of the car to warn other drivers that we were not your regular traffic you’d expect. And it really worked. The few cars we came across, all patiently waited until they could pass us and never did we have someone upset about our driving. Fun story: during the night, there was this van who came up from behind us and instead of passing us, it just stayed behind. We thought it was really strange when all of a sudden, they put on the flashlights.

It turned out to be the cops pulling us over. So, the guy comes up to us, asking about the TEST sign and what we were doing. He actually assumed that we were testing the Full Self Drive version of the car. But as soon as he heard our explanation, he actually apologised for having stopped us and interfering with our test. He would then radio his colleagues to leave is alone for the rest of the attempt. Sometimes the cops can be your friend :-).

As we drove into dawn we were treated with a beautiful scenery of the harbour, but on the other hand, temperatures immediately started climbing fast. It was supposed to be cloudy and about 22°C, but by noon, we reached 25°C with the sun out in full force, piercing through the windows into our (by then soaking wet) bodies. That was definitely not the best part of the journey.

As time went by and we accumulated more and more laps of our “track”, we started to become extremely efficient at each and every corner. We managed to get an average efficiency over 50km below 100Wh/km and even had sections where the consumption over 10km dropped to 88Wh/km! We never thought it was even possible to get those values in a car that weighs 2.3 tons.

If that would be something we could have managed from the start, we might even have reached the magic 4-digit range. However, due to variances in temperature, traffic and wind conditions, that would have to be a perfect run in perfect circumstances, which I believe are not possible in our country.

As we reached the 300km mark, we knew we were in trouble, because we would not even break that second record. That was impossible! But the numbers don’t lie. We needed to ramp up our game to still make it.

So, we did try harder and harder to get those numbers down, until the sun came to our aid and we saw a dramatic decrease in power consumption as the temperature rose. Below 20°C we saw a decrease of 1-2Wh/km for each degree the temperature rose. Once above 20°C thing became more complicated, so it is definitely not a linear curve. With a few other adjustments, we got the consumption way down and things were looking good again.

Of course, Joeri was not only there to keep me company. We occasionally switched places and he got to drive a bit as well. Unfortunately for me, I cannot sleep in a car seat, so I actually pulled an all-nighter. Joeri, on the other hand, seems to be able to sleep on command, so he got to take a few power naps while I was driving.

At a certain point during the day, temperatures reached 26°C outside, with the sun in full force, as I explained above already. This caused the temperature inside the car to rise quickly, reaching an unbearable 35°C and even close to 38°C a bit later. I actually took a snapshot of the Tesla app to prove it. It was just like sitting in hell and the sun was really burning. We let a sigh of relief every time we turned back around and had the sun behind us, were the tinted windows provided some protection.

In the meantime, we were closing in on the end and we were thrilled to break Bjørn Nyland’s record while still having some energy left. However, when calculating the numbers, we always kept coming out to less than 900km in the end. That was just not acceptable, not with a 100kWh battery. So, we reviewed everything we did all over again because every single Wh we could spare would be necessary.

As we neared the last few kilometres, we abandoned our closed loop and headed out to the charging point again. That road was pretty much empty and although it was not the best road surface, we just didn’t want to risk coming to a dead stop in the middle of nowhere. At the point where we were literally running on the last electrons (can hardly use the expression we were running on fumes ;-)), we just drove up and down that road until we saw the battery level drop to 0%. And then we pushed the boundaries slightly by continuing for a few kilometers until we broke the 900km barrier.

At that point, we decided to not take any more chances and headed straight for the charger. 23 hours and 45 minutes was the time it took for this whole endeavour to complete and we were so glad it was over. Don’t get me wrong. We had fun along the entire way, but it is a very long drive. In the end we arrived at the charger with 901,2km on a single charge, breaking both world records and moving the goal posts beyond 900km.

At the beginning of the article, I questioned whether or not the P100D would be less efficient than the regular 100D. You see, the rear motor of the P100D is less efficient than the rear motor on the regular 100D. But in range mode, the rear motor is not used while cruising at highway speeds. If cruising at low speeds and driving very consistently has the same effect, then basically both cars would use the same motor for most of the time during the trip.

There is of course a slight weight difference between both cars, because of the bigger motor. But would it really make much of a difference? I guess someone will have to try to break our record in a 100D to be able to tell for sure. And even then, it would have to be on the same location in the same conditions, unless the difference is so vast it doesn’t matter. So, we’re not sure if it does make a difference at all. You’re welcome to try and prove us wrong. But for now, the quickest production car in the world also holds the record for the longest distance on a single charge…

If this article has inspired you to buy a Tesla, you can use my referral link http://ts.la/steven1007 to get €1.000 or $1,000 discount AND free supercharging for the life of your car.

At the end of last year, Tesla announced you would no longer get free supercharging with your Model S or X if you would not order before New Year and/or your car was not delivered before the end of March. Then it extended the period until January 15, 2017 to order your car and it had to be produced before April 15th. If you didn’t do it in that timeframe, you would lose free supercharging for life on the car and would get only 400kWh of free supercharging.

Tesla claims that that would get you free long distance driving, but I really don’t call 1500km anything close to "long distance". Sure, for a lot of people that might be enough to go on vacation. But my annual family road trip alone puts over 5.000km on the odometer. And then I go to seminars abroad on a regular basis too. So, for me, even though the supercharging would have cost me only @euro;0.23/kWh, it was something that pushed me over the fence and I actually ordered before New Year.

Now, however, Tesla has brought back free lifetime supercharging via the referral program, but with a few specific notes:

All cars that have been ordered in 2017 up until now are getting free lifetime supercharging after all

The referral link must be used at the same time as ordering the car. It cannot be added afterwards

The free lifetime supercharging is only valid for the first owner of the car and lasts only as long as he has the car

That last part is an important one. The free supercharging has always remained with the car and not with the owner. That means that if I were to sell my car to you, I would have lost free supercharging and you would get it with the car, even though it was no longer offered. Now, it’s a whole new game in the sense that with a new car, you still get the free supercharging, but once you sell the car, neither you, nor the buyer are entitled to it and it reverts back to the free 400kWh after which it becomes a paying charge. This new program started on May 19, 2017 and will last until the end of 2017.

Also, the referral program only allows an owner to refer 5 people that get this perk until the end of the year. That mans that there are still going to be cars that do not have the free supercharging. The cars that are ordered without using the referral link will still get the free 400kWh per year (reset on the date you bought the car and cannot be accumulated).

This goes for the new or inventory cars. But according to this article on Teslarati tesla has confirmed that existing owners will also keep their free lifetime supercharging when they buy a new car. Of course, idle fees of €0.40/minute will remain in effect (starts 5 minutes after charging has completed) for everyone to help avoid stalls being occupied for too long and to stop supercharger abuse.

So, if you are interested in buying a Tesla, but you were kind of held off by the free supercharging disappearing. Now you get your chance to get it anyway by using my referral link http://ts.la/steven1007. The link can be used for both new and inventory cars, not on CPOs (Certified Pre-Owned). Additionally, by using this link when you order you will get a €1.000 discount on your order. I know it is not much, but it is the only discount you will get on a new car.

The good part for me as an owner is that every time somebody uses my referral code I get closer to winning some cool prizes, such as a jacket, a small suitcase, a Model S for Kids, a Powerwall (which I really would like to get), the awesome 21″ Arachnid wheels or invites to factory tours and launch events. Every referral also gets me a ticket in the lottery to win a full option Ludicrous Model S or X for free (excluding taxes of course). That would help me get my wife in an electric car as well. So, every referral counts and is very much appreciated!

The best part of all is that up until June 15th, every referral counts both in this round and the one that was already started and ends on June 15th. So, that means getting a lottery ticket and counter increase towards the prizes in both referral programs. So, actually I should have said every referral counts TWICE and is extremely appreciated 🙂 !

Tesla in itself is a rather young company, especially within the car manufacturing business. There are also still some people that haven’t heard of it, but those numbers are shrinking. From the start, the Roadster, I’ve been watching Tesla from a distance. Every once in a while, I was looking at what they were doing, but that didn’t turn out to be much. The Roadster was a proof of concept for Tesla to convince the people an electric car didn’t have to be dull and boring and slow and … It could be a fun little sports car with great performance!

A few years later they came up with the Model S. Immediately my interest peaked, but the car was way out of my budget range as a private person. So, besides starting to follow-up closer on Tesla and drooling over the pictures, there was not much more I could do. Also, the huge torque of the car and the fact that it was rear-wheel drive only kind of scared me a little bit. I’ve seen enough rear-wheel drive cars acting up in winter conditions. But in the meantime, I actively started following the business and started to believe more and more in their mission. This was a company that has the potential to wow the world. (and by now it already has :-))

Years were passing by and in 2012 I decided to jump into the deep and become an independent consultant. That of course created new opportunities to choose my company car. But of course, you don’t just start a business and go for a €100.000 company car. In 2014, a few years of working very hard later, Elon Musk presented the P85D: four-wheel drive, nice design, practical enough to seat 3 kids in the back and carry a lot of luggage and a performance to give most supercars a run for their money. A sports car for me and a practical family car for the misses in 1 single package. What more could you ask for?

Superchargers

However, there were some hurdles that needed to be taken before I would actually buy such a car. For me, it would be my daily driver, but I also wanted to take it on a vacation or to several aikido seminars in the neighbouring countries. Up until then we used our Ford S-Max to go on vacation: a very practical car in view of cargo capacity, nice drive and room in the back for 3 kids to sit comfortably. But I’m not a fan of the SUV and people carrier, so it felt more like an obligation to take that car for the long-distance driving than an actual joy.

With a cargo capacity of almost 900L and the fact that the kids were growing up and we needed to take less baby equipment, the practicality box could be ticked. But what about charging and travelling long distances? Would we have to book additional nights and travel additional days to get to our destination? Would we be parked and bored for a very long time while we were waiting for the car to be charged? Would we only be able to drive short distances? Lots of practical questions that were running through my mind.

At that time, I looked at the tesla website and their superchargers and saw that there weren’t really many of them around. The counter in Europe was set to 68 in October of 2014. But still, the promise of expansion was there and I had to wait for about 6 months for my car to be delivered anyway. So, I took the plunge and ordered a Model S P85D. I mean, if it didn’t work out, we’d still have the other car to take on vacation, right?

At the point where my car was finally delivered, 135 superchargers were opened, doubling the number in 6 months. That was more like it, even though we really had to figure out the routes to take on longer trips. It was a small mind set adjustment to make: you don’t just take any route you like, because chargers are not abundant yet. But that adjustment was easily made because a few weeks later, Tesla brought out another OTA (Over The Air) update that introduced “trip planner”, an addition to the navigation that calculates which superchargers you need to use and which routes to take to comfortably reach your destination.

Now, 2 years later, I look at the map again and see that Europe has 297 supercharger locations spread over most of the western part of the European continent, with several superchargers being planned or under construction. That number will probably be even higher by the time you read this. That is an average of about 10 supercharger locations being added every month! The expansion continues relentlessly! And that is certainly a good thing for people still doubting to take the Tesla on a road trip. I personally don’t even think about this anymore and just embark on any European road trip without hesitation. Charging options are everywhere where you can find current, so there is always an option to charge somewhere. And with the continuous expansion of the supercharger network, road tripping in a Tesla only gets easier with time.

Continuous improvement

Almost exactly 2 years and 75.000km later I received my brand-new Model S P100D. So, I thought it was a good time to compare both cars. Tesla has been claiming from the start they implement around 20 changes every week. These are not only improvements to the car itself, but also to the production process, the order process, delivery process, logistics, supplier management, etc. But still, I you stop and think about it, that actually means that in those 2 years they should have implemented about 2.000 improvements. There should be quite a few of them that are really noticeable, no?

That is why I took some time to compare both cars side by side. And what struck me almost immediately, is the fact that there are indeed quite some differences between them. Some were easy to spot, others lie more beneath the skin and some are completely hidden from the customer. It is impossible to sum up every one of them, but let me just highlight a few important ones.

Exterior

A couple of this are immediately noticeable as change or improvement on the exterior of the car. In the picture above you can clearly see a big difference in the nose of the car. The facelift is a big visual improvement for some and others still like the old, original nosecone more.

Also, the back of the car has undergone some changes. Gone is the protruding chromed diffuser. It remains contained to the underside of the car and the rear has a shiny black part instead. Personally, I think both versions have something going for them, but would have loved to see the old back end with the new nose.

The new nose has actually a better aerodynamic drag coefficient of 0,21 versus 0,24 for the old one. And it also gives the car a sportier look, which I like and which is one of the reasons I opted to go for an upgrade of my car.

Interior

The interior of the car is kind of clean, empty, simplistic. The big screen in the middle controls virtually anything in the car. This is a big difference with most other cars, it allows Tesla to push a software update to optimise screens or add and remove buttons and functionality. In my 2 years of driving a Tesla I’ve seen buttons appear (e.g. creep mode), disappear (e.g. checkbox for auto screen brightness) or being moved to a different tab (e.g. the new “doors & locks” tab). But I’ll come back to the software aspect a bit later in this blog.

One of the things I noticed almost immediately, is the fact that panel gaps are more consistent and smaller overall. In the picture below, on the left side, you can see how the alcantara on the A pillar in the P85D has actually a gap of a centimetre where it meets the headliner. In the P100D on the right side, that is like a perfect fit. And because of the fact that I’ve been installing dashcams in over 25 Teslas in the past 6 months, I’ve seen many interiors in cars of different ages and can say this is a consistent improvement and not just a lucky one-of.

Sound

When I first drove the P85D, I noticed there was quite a bit of wind and tire noise clearly audible in the cabin. Of course, you’ll notice them more in a car that doesn’t make any engine noise, but I was a bit disappointed that it wasn’t as quiet as I anticipated. Tire noise is also very much dependent on the road surface. In Belgium we have quite a bit of different types of asphalt and concrete on our roads, as well as potholes, cracks and local road repairs. All these different surfaces produce different amounts of tire noise. On the other hand, if you drive on the German Autobahn or Dutch roads, you really notice how quiet the car really is…

In the meantime, the new car is noticeably quieter inside in the same circumstances. Sound proofing has improved a lot and I can enjoy the silence even more. So, I’m looking forward to my very first long-distance road trip in this car in the next few weeks to really experience the improvements over longer periods of driving.

Doors

It may sound weird, but one of my concerns in the P85D was the fear of closing the doors to hard. At least, it felt that way. The doors are light because they’re made of aluminium, but they also felt kind of brittle. The sound of closing the door always made me think “oh, that seemed like I threw it shut instead of closing it normally”. I didn’t actually have any problems with it, but the sound was not really comforting, as you would expect from a luxury car.

The new car has doors that close and make the sound we’ve come to expect from luxury car brands. They have a more solid, sturdy impression. It may sound stupid, but to me this is a very big improvement. You’re paying a lot of money for a Tesla, so I expect it to feel and sound as good or better than the competing bands’ cars. Let’s not forget that tesla is only mass producing cars for about 5 years (still ramping up production), whereas other brands have been around for over 50 years and have had a lot more time to get these things right. But it must also be said that Tesla has been catching up with them in a very short time and with an incredible pace that none of those other car manufacturers have been able to demonstrate in their entire history. They’ll get to the same level of fit and finish sooner than most of us think.

AutoPilot hardware

Recently, Elon Musk stated on twitter that tesla will continue to innovate at a rapid rate and the cars will see major improvements and changes every 18-24 months. And if you can’t live with the fact that your car doesn’t have a certain feature that comes out 2 weeks after you bought it, then Tesla isn’t really for you.

When I ordered my first Tesla I thought that a 4-year lease would be adequate. In 4 years’ time the hardware would be radically different, the battery technology would have changed and the software would be vastly different. Less than 2 years later Tesla introduces Hardware 2 (HW2): 8 cameras instead of 2, better ultrasonic sensors with a range of 9 meters instead of 5 and an equivalent of 150 MacBook Pro laptops in calculation capacity (or 40 time more than the HW1 cars), with the promise of being able to achieve full autonomy.

And thus began the difficult process to convince myself to trade in my perfectly good car after 2 years, when being on a 4-year lease, for a car that would be more capable in the future, but is less capable right now. The P85D has 2 good years of service, had never let me down, was a thrill to drive and accompanied me on many European road trips. But the calling of wanting to be a pioneer again in a future of fully autonomous cars was something I couldn’t resist. So, after a couple of weeks I gave in and ordered a new car.

Software

When I got my P85D on March 30, 2015, the car had plenty performance, but not a lot of the technical gadgets we know today. Just 4 days after that, I got my very first OTA update and suddenly I had adaptive cruise control and the car adjusted itself to match the speed of the car in front of you. Or as Tesla calls it: Traffic Aware Cruise Control (TACC).

A few months down the line and another update comes along. This time it increases the quickness of the car and makes it a tenth of a second faster to 100km/h, dropping that time from 3,4s to 3,2s. As if the car wasn’t fast enough yet… In between there were some updates with some bugfixes and new features on the car (like the addition of a creep setting that I mentioned before). And all of this, without having to go to a service center to get it installed!

Flash forward to October 2015 and we get to see probably the most important software update to date: AutoPilot is being rolled out officially to all cars with the required hardware! The term “AutoPilot” is actually a combination of a few features, such as TACC, Summon, AutoPark and AutoSteer. Most of us mean Autosteer and TACC combined when we talk about AutoPilot in general. But the point is that my car could do none of those things when I received it and simple software updates made my car more capable after delivery. And Tesla keeps doing that to all of our cars. How cool is that!

The system of these updates is so logical that it baffles me other car manufacturers haven’t been doing this for longer. Nowadays, we have WiFi and 3G/4G/LTE connectivity all around us and those manufacturers are now starting to see the light and start to promise the same OTA system on their upcoming cars. But there’s a catch too: they’re not there yet, so tesla is still miles ahead of everyone on this front and will continue to do so for quite some time in my opinion.

In the meantime, my P100D has had a couple of updates as well and AutoSteer is now finally usable on the highway. If I’m really honest, then I have to admit that the AutoPilot functionality of HW1 cars is still a lot better than the current version in HW2 cars. But let’s review this statement in a couple of months and I’m sure it will be the other way around. One of the disadvantages of jumping on the self-driving train so soon, but for me it was a deliberate choice in order to be able to contribute to the vision and goals of Tesla and to help make this a successful endeavour

The rate at which tesla keeps implementing these improvements is astonishing. Especially if you consider the complexity involved to analyse and react to all these different types of traffic and road situations. I, for one, am always looking out for the next update to come. Every time it’s a bit like Santa’s left a present to unwrap. And every time the little kid inside me gets all excited when I get the notification another update is ready to install.

Sometimes these updates only contain bugfixes, sometimes they are limitations of the functionality because of potential safety issues. And sometimes we get additional cool features or even the so-called “Easter eggs”, which are well-known in the IT world. That makes it exciting each and every time you get that message a new update is ready.

Service

Over the years, Tesla has become a little bit a victim of its own success. Because of the increasing popularity, exponentially more cars were sold. But since tesla doesn’t use a network of dealers, like other manufacturers do, this created a shortage of service centers where you can go for service and maintenance.

Gradually this started to cause problems in the sense that you could be waiting weeks to get an appointment. At a certain time, I even had to wait for almost 3 months to bring my car in for a maintenance job. Admittedly, urgent matters were of course given high priority, but the non-urgent matters could still be annoying to drive with for that long a period. I can’t speak for all service centers, but I’m just talking about the one that I frequent.

But, Tesla wouldn’t be Tesla if they’d just accept this situation. An additional service center was added and there is another one planned to open soon in Belgium. On the other hand, they are also applying the principle of continuous improvement to their service centers. In the past year, they made hard work of streamlining the workplace and work orders, creating small batches of work, but lining up many of those small batches on a single car.

As Lean Thinking has taught us: small batches flow faster than large batches. So, that means more work can be done on a single car and/or more cars can be handled in the same timeframe. Flow and small batches are not the only principles they apply. I’ve also seen Kanban boards and workplace organisation (5S) in action. And probable there are probably some other changes that have happened behind the scenes and are not (or less) visible to the customers. It may all sound fancy, but in the end the principles and techniques are all just common sense.

All these actions combined have changed the service center’s ability to handle more work and since the beginning of 2017, I haven’t had to wait for an appointment. Twice I had a small issue and on both occasions, I could come in the next day. They actually brought the waiting list down from several weeks to the next day. Talk about improvement!

Of course, I’m very curious to see how the system will hold up when thousands of Model 3 cars will hit the streets. It won’t be easy to take on such a ramp-up and additional changes will have to be made to keep the waiting list as small as possible. But even when queues start to build up, I’m convinced Tesla will invest and innovate once again to tackle the problem and reduce the waiting time for service. Because, if there is one thing Tesla has proven over the past years, it is that keep improving and innovating relentlessly, on all aspects. And that is exactly one of the main reasons why I strongly belief in the brand and its mission: “To accelerate the advent of sustainable transport and energy”!

Should this article have been helpful and you want to buy a Tesla, please use my referral code http://ts.la/steven1007 and get €1.000,00 discount on your new or inventory car.

Driving a Tesla is addictive. The smoothness of the car and the way it effortlessly eats up the kilometres makes it an excellent cruising missile for cross country road trips. The first year I took it on holiday to Sweden, this year to Croatia and next year we’ll go back, but quite a bit further, all the way to Dubrovnik with daytrips to Montenegro, for example. In between the big road trips I’ve been to Germany, France, The Netherlands and Switzerland for aikido seminars, professional courses, long weekends or short trips.

So, I was thinking I’d write this post to give the newer drivers some interesting information about the process I’ve been going through when planning these road trips. As a disclaimer, I must mention that I’m kind of a control freak, so your thought process might vary.

Driving long distances

Let’s start with the destinations to pick from. Tesla sales people might tell you that you can go anywhere you want using the supercharger network. However, even though the network has grown quite a bit in the past 2-3 years, there are still some "blind spots" where you’re off-supercharger-grid. So, you have to take that into consideration. Does that mean you can’t go there? No. But you sure as hell need to know what you’re getting yourself into if you want to drive distances using only public chargers. But I’ll talk more about that in just a bit.

The supercharger network is, as you can see below, quite extensive and allows you to drive an average of 2 to 2,5 hours before you need to charge again. Charging times depend on lots of factors, so there is a rule of thumb you can use (and the Tesla navigation uses that too), but there are too many variables to give any guarantees. Consider it a guideline.

One thing you have to keep in mind when taking road trips as efficiently as possible, is that you try to reach the supercharger with a state of charge around 10-15% or lower. That way you get the highest rate of charge and fill up quicker than when you start at 50%, for example. Another thing to keep in mind is that you have to get rid of the mindset that you should "fill up". That just takes way too long, because again, the higher your state of charge, the slower the car will charge. Just compare it to the Lithium-Ion battery in your phone: charging from 0% to 80% takes as much time as charging from 80% to 100%. To be efficient and not lose too much time, you only need to charge up to the level to get to your destination and take some margin on that. In general, I’ll take a 15% margin, but when driving the unlimited Autobahn, of course I’ll need more than that…

Now, how do you know how much margin to take? Well, I’ll give the consultant’s answer and say "It depends" . You’ll quickly find out your personal average consumption rate once you drive the car for a few longer distances. But then you could also take several parameters into account. An important one is elevation. The car’s navigation does quite a good job of taking that into account. But the car assumes its programmed average consumption of around 188Wh/km. This number slightly varies for each car, because of the efficiency of the different motor types: a performance rear motor is not as efficient as the smaller motors in a non-performance car. My lifetime average over 65.000 km is around 220Wh/km, so I factor in an additional 15% consumption, unless it is mostly downhill. That’s the 15% margin I mentioned above.

Another important factor that some might overlook, is the climate conditions. If it’s really cold, you’ll use more because of the fact that you will be using a 6kW electrical heater to heat the cabin, but also to keep the battery at the optimal temperature of around 25°C. If it’s really hot, you’ll use only a bit more, because the battery will already be optimal and the A/C uses less power than heating the car. If it is raining, you’ll have more rolling resistance, so you’ll use about 5% more power (from my own experience on 21” summer tires). And if you’re facing a head wind, that will have more impact than you would guess at first. This is no different from any other car.

To know what I’m facing on the next leg of my trip, I usually take a quick look at the website http://www.yr.no, which gives pretty accurate temperature, rain and wind predictions in 3 hour intervals. Next to that I’ll look at the Windity app (see screenshot below) which is a realtime wind measuring tool. That way I’ll get an idea of where the wind is coming from and how strong it is on the whole leg of the journey. If it’s a strong head wind all the time, I’ll again take some additional margin. With a tail wind, I don’t add anything, but also not subtract anything, just to be on the safe side.

As to driving times and speed, I can say that from experience I can get about 85km/h on average. That includes everything, from start to finish: driving, charging, eating, pit stops etc. For an 850km trip that means it will take you about 10 hours in total to reach your destination. Especially with 3 kids in the back you need to let them stretch their legs and let them play for a bit every 2 hours or so. And that matches perfectly with the charging stops, while at the same time also adhering to the recommended driving and resting times. Coming back from Sweden I did a one day trip back home from the top of Denmark (Frederikshaven) to my house in Belgium, which was 1150km, and was still fresh and not tired at all when we got home. And that was before I had AutoPilot to do most of the highway driving.

Picking a destination

For me, picking a destination is quite easy. I start with destinations that I would like to visit (or my wife tells me where we are going ) and then I start looking at http://www.supercharge.info (see also screenshot above) to see if we can get there comfortably or not using the supercharger network. In Sweden for example, we were able to charge at Karlstad, but that was the very last supercharger to where we were going to drive around for the next 2,5 weeks (in the meantime there is an additional charger at Mora that wasn’t there last year). At first it seemed impossible, but that is where the fun starts.

In such a situation, I always look for destination chargers. Now, tesla has its own growing network of what they call destination chargers (which can also be found in the car’s navigation system), but in my definition, it also includes any and all possibilities of charging the car wherever you’re staying and not just at hotels. So, when I book an apartment or vacation home (hotels are just too expensive with 5 people), I ask if there is a possibility to charge my car (socket or 3-phase red plug if I’m lucky). I usually also mention the fact that I’m more than happy to pay extra for this, but most of the time they will just reply I can charge for free. Ain’t that nice?

However, sometimes there are no superchargers in the area where you’ll be staying (too far away) or you can’t charge at your destination. Then it’s on to the next level and I’ll start looking for public chargers. Is there one in the town or city we’ll be staying? If so, do I need a specific RFID or app to be able to use it? If not, then the problem has been solved and I’ll park there for a while when visiting the surroundings. And if you’re lucky, the public charger can be free too! But keep in mind these chargers are usually slow and you’ll need to spend at least a good couple of hours in that area before you can get going again.

But most of the time you will need some kind of charging app or RFID card. That is where the tricky part begins in the sense that there still is not 1 single provider that gets you access to every single charging station in Europe. There is a huge effort going on in these companies to work together and allow each other’s cards on the networks, but there is also still a long way to go.

So how do you know which card or app to use? The main website I’m using is http://www.chargemap.com. I know some like http://www.plugshare.com better, but I personally find more information and more accurate information on the first one. There is also http://www.plugsurfing.com, which is rapidly expanding its network. And for the Nordics I use http://www.ladestasjoner.no. Of course, there are many more apps and websites, but these are the ones I use the most and they are also in my favorites list in the browser of my car. These websites and apps usually state who the provider is and whether or not it is free and what charges may apply. Sometimes you can find a charger that says “only for guests of the brand” or something like that. Nissan garages do that commonly, so you probably won’t be able to use those. At least, I don’t count on those. But once you find a suitable charger, you can order an RFID card or download the app and you’re set again.

And of course, you might run out of luck after all and don’t find anything suitable for charging and you’ll have to get creative: marinas have boat docks that have power outlets, for example. Talking to the harbour master might get you on the road again. However, you can’t count on that either, since you can’t really call them up front and ask permission. You’ll just have to see when you get there, so that might be a gamble.

The most important aspect I want you to remember is that anything that gives electrical power can be used as a potential charging point, providing you have the correct adapter. And I have made a few of my own, so except for the specific and costly CHAdeMO adapter, I can hook up to anything. The people from Tesla Club Belgium have made a nice overview of how quickly the different charging options will charge your car as a reference guide (see picture above). I also have a laminated version in my car, but know most of them by heart by now.

The second most important thing to remember is the fact that you should always have a plan B with an alternate charging point. That way you don’t have to panic when plan A doesn’t work out, because the site is not accessible, the information was wrong, or it was just occupied.

Navigation

O dear, we have come to the topic of the navigation in a Tesla. There is a lot to say about this and there are people that hate it and people that accept the flaws. I’m in the latter group. The navigation is far from perfect and even some basic functions are missing. But there are ways to work around them and get exactly what you want. Well, for most of the issues at least.

The good thing about the navigation is the fact that it can automatically route you on your journey via all the necessary superchargers. It will tell you where to stop and how long to charge (the rule of thumb, remember). But it doesn’t always take the route you want to take. One way to get around this is to select the charger you want to visit next as your next destination. Or you could drop a pin on the map somewhere in that direction, simply by pressing down longer where you want the pin to be. And then that can be your next destination.

Sometimes the navigation will act strangely in the sense that it can send you on a detour for a few kilometres and then back again on the highway. Nobody knows (yet) why this is happening, but feel free to ignore it and the navigation will pick up your decision and recalculate the route for you.

Another quirk in the navigation has to do with the supercharger routing. When we were in Sweden, we had to drive about 200km to the next holiday home. We started in a place with no superchargers nearby and at the destination I had a public 22kW charging station available. But the car doesn’t know that, unless you’ve charged there before (it remembers all your charging stops). Instead of guiding me directly to my destination, it took me into Norway for a 500km detour, just to visit a supercharger! Quickest way around this one is to hit the "Remove all charging stops" link in the navigation and it will set you right back on track.

One of the features in the navigation I like the most is the combination of the Trip consumption prediction and something that Tesla calls "range assurance". This last one is interesting, because the car will calculate how much energy you will have left when you get to your destination. If that dips below 7%, the car will warn you about this and will suggest a maximum speed to make sure you reach the destination (which could be a supercharger). To do this, it actually takes elevation, actual speed, and climate factors into consideration to extrapolate how much energy you will consume. And you’ll see a nice graph of this in a second tab on the energy app, so you can keep an eye on this if you want.

In the 65.000km I’ve driving and the various road trips I’ve done, I have found this to be pretty accurate. Of course, if you start driving 200km/h, the graph will have you panicking at first, but if you realise that the graph will go parallel again with the original estimate once you go back down to normal speed, you’ll know how far you can take it. I use it quite a lot and really like it because it gives me some peace of mind.

Fun, fun, fun

This very long article seems to be focussing on worrying about where to go and how to get there. But you shouldn’t forget the fact that driving a tesla is fun! And it’s not only because it has a gazillion torques, but because of the ease of driving.

Driving through the mountains, you don’t have to constantly shift up and down in hairpin bends, sometimes ending up in the wrong gear and having to shift again etc. The car just takes these roads with such ease that it becomes much more relaxing to drive these sometimes-dangerous roads, because you can focus more on the road itself and at the same time also enjoy the scenery more. The instant torque from the motors also make sure you have no trouble whatsoever to come out of a corner on a steep hill and just get going.

The car also has loads of space, both inside the cabin and in the trunk/frunk. It is on par with the cargo capacity of an Audi A4 Avant (the rear wheel drive ones even with the Audi A6 Avant). For me that meant I could leave our Ford S-Max at home and take the Tesla Model S instead.

Another remarkable aspect, is that before I drove my Tesla, I wanted to get to my destination as quickly as possible. Now, the supercharger network takes me on other routes on the one hand, but on the other hand I find myself searching for scenic routes to enjoy the journey to our destination as well. I guess I’m trying to find excuses for spending more time driving the Tesla ;-).

And last, but not least, you’re driving the most technologically advanced mass produced car on the planet (for now), which includes having Autopilot. This allows you to relax again and have the car help you drive. It takes care of a lot of stuff for you, but you still need to be vigilant, of course, because it’s is still not a self-driving car. Speaking of which, every single tesla that is currently produced (and as of mid September 2016) has all the necessary hardware for full self-driving capability (or so Elon Musk has promised us). That means the hardware is in place, but the software still needs to catch up. But if you look at the clip below, you can see that, even though this is a fixed route, the car can already handle various unexpected and complex situations. Of course, we won’t be getting this update for quite some time. But the future is looking bright.

Just think about it: stepping into your car, going to sleep and waking up at your destination. Wouldn’t that be awesome? This future is closer than we think and I think we are all going to be surprised about how quickly this is going to happen. I for one can’t wait to be a pioneer in this game.

If this information has been helpful for you and you are planning on buying a Tesla Model S or Model X, please use my referral code http://ts.la/steven1007 for a €1.000 discount.

Last week I had to go to Amsterdam (The Netherlands) for my work and right after that I was going to drive to an aikido seminar in Stuttgart (Germany) for the weekend. Coming from Belgium, that meant that I had to drive 1600 km in 3 days. Actually, make that 1.5 days, because on Saturday and Sunday morning I was training hard while the car wasn’t moving at all.

So this seemed to me a perfect test for Tesla’s recently released AutoPilot feature. Now, I do call it AutoPilot, but actually it is a set of features that Tesla has been releasing gradually over the past year. Let me start by explaining what the system is and especially what it isn’t.

Autopilot is the software that makes use of the car’s front camera, the front radar, the GPS and 12 ultrasonic sensors that scan 360° around the car. Those capabilities combined give you a list of intersting and useful features. For those of you already familiar with Autopilot, you can continue reading here.

Tesla AutoPilot v7.0 DashBoard [Source: Tesla Motors]

TACC: Traffic Aware Cruise Control.

This is just another name for Adaptive Cruise Control or Radar Guided Cruise Control and it works just the same as in any other car that has the system. You set a specific speed the car needs to maintain, but if another car is in front of yours its radar makes you hold a set distance (selectable between 7 and 1, ranging from suite a distance, to full “BMW mode” 😉 ) If the car in front of you slows down, your car simply follows that move and keeps the same distance so you don’t run into it. It can even bring you to a complete stop if necessary and can do an emergency stop in case of a distracted driver, for example. A nice safety feature in the first place.

AutoPark

AutoPark in action [Source: Tesla Motors]

Again, this is a feature that works similarly to other cars that have had this capability for quite some time. So Tesla was kind of catching up to the others. But instead of simply catching up, tesla has leapfrogged the competition by taking it one step further. Like in most cars you drive by the parking spot and the car alerts you to an open position. Then you select reverse and that’s where the similarities end. With another car the car does the turning, but you have to accellerate and brake, put it in drive again and position the car in the parking space. In a Tesla, you simply hit a button on the massive center touchscreen and the car parks itself, controlling steering, gear and throttle all by itself, with you as a passive driver, only needing to intervene if something unexpected occurs.

AutoSteer (beta)

AutoSteer in action [Source: Tesla Motors]

At the time of writing this blog post auto steer is still in beta, but it is already an awesome feature and I can’t wait for the glitches to be resolved and the system improving even more. But for now, it looks a lot like the Lane Assist that you find on other cars to keep you in your lane. Mercedes has this traffic jam assist that drives the car all by itself at low speeds so,in traffic jams you are no longer burdened with constantly stopping and going. Tesla has the same capabilities, but again, that is where the similarities with existing systems ends. Tesla allows this capability to take over steering completely at higher speeds as well, up to 150kph even! There are some situations where it doesn’t work (well), but I’ll get to that in a minute.

Auto Lane Change

Auto Lane Change [Source: Tesla Motors]

The last main feature of the AutoPilot system is the ability of the car to change lanes all by itself, just by enabling the blinker. It works in both directions and when you activate it (only possible when AutoSteer is active) the car checks for you if it is safe to change lanes and when it is it changes 1 lane in the indicated direction. So for moving up 2 lanes, you need to activate it twice.

Well, it depends on a lot of things how good the system works. TACC works great in most cases, but when a car cuts you of, I find it reacts to slowly. Also, when a car comes in between you and the car in front but with enough room in between, it takes a good part of the car to be in your lane before it detects it and adjust the distance to follow the merging car.

I understand these are circumstances that the current hardware suite cannot detect. The radar has a rather narrow beam, focussed on long range capability instead of short and wide range. I might be msitaking, but the front camera has limited depth view because it is not stereoscopic. It does have depth information, but I assume not enough to account for such situations. So there lies one of the problems with the whole system: the current hardware suite is not sufficient to make it as good as it could be. But I’m sure the continuous improvement strategy from Tesla will fix that in the next hardware iteration of the cars.

Then we come to AutoPark. While it does go one step further than other brands, the proble is that currently it only works when you want to park in between 2 cars AND the car has to detect some kind of curb too. If there is only 1 car and you want to parallel park (because there is a pole on the othe side of the parking spot so you can drive in forwards, for example), the system doesn’t work. If the parking space has a bike lane behind it, so ther’s no curb, the system doesn’t work. That’s a shame, but again, I’m sure it will be updated in the future and my car will get a little bit better yet again.

I do still have issues with the Auto Lane Change feature in the sense that I don’t get it. Yes, it does perform an additional check before actually turning. But in Europe we got a different version of the software that needs you to firmly hold the steering wheel before it activates. So for me, I might as well do the lane change myself. For me, this provides little added value.

AutoPilot following the car in front of me during a huge traffic jam

And then we come to “la pièce de résistance”: AutoSteer. This is the killer feature that puts Tesla in the lead of moving towards autonomous vehicles. Before I go any further I should clarify that this feature (with the combination of the others) is NOT auntonomous driving! The system still needs clear supervision by the driver, even do it can handle a lot of situations.

So if you have the capability in your own Tesla, please don’t do stupid things like climbing in the back seat or reading the newspaper while driving! And if you do feel the uncontrollable urge to do so, don’t film it and put it on YouTube. If too many people vbehave like this, gioverments will put a ban on AutoPilot and you will be punishing all of us other drivers by taking it away from us who use it wisely. Just don’t do it!

Disclaimer: This doesn’t mean that I haven’t tested the system limits. I’m a curious guy like any other, but when I did, it was under controlled environments, on empty roads, with hands hovering millimeters above the steering wheel, ready to take over in an instant. You don’t need to climb in the back seat to prove the car drives on its own, you know. Also, the feedback I had from my tests, I clearly wrote them down with example situations where it did and did not perform as expected and sent it to Tesla support for them to use it to improve the system.

But enough ranting. How good is it in real life? It copes with most situations rather well. The system claerly needs well marked lanes to operate efficiently and it does work best on highways (for which it is primarily designed). It does work on major roads and some smaller back roads, but having no lines and oncoming traffic on a road with single lines in each direction is a big “no-no” for AutoSteer.

On the other hand, when used as advertised and as designed, the system performs really well and helps your drive to work or your road trip to be more relaxing, taking some of the more stressful parts off your hands. This leaves you with more time to be more attentive to your surroundings, or to enjoy the scenery, or even be more attentive to your fellow passengers (without loosing sight of traffic of course).

Talking about road trips, as I mentiond in the beginning, I went on a road trip this weekend. First stop was Amsterdam. While the car is phenomenal to drive, I wanted to conduct an experiment. So as soon as I entered the highway I enabled AutoPilot and didn’t need to touch the steering wheel or pedals for the next 180 km, until I had to exit the highway in Amsterdam!

Next stop was in Stuttgart, a 600 km away and I wanted to use AutoPilot as much as possible. That meant using it in huge traffic jams, where the car follows the car in front of you due to lack of good sight on the lane markings and the fact that you’re driving below 30 kph. It also meant driving on an almost empty Autobahn at 150kph (maximum speed for AutoPilot) as a passenger in the driver’s seat. This is rather unnerving and I wouldn’t call it relaxing at all, but as an experiment and party trick it is awesome!

Tesla AutoPilot at 150kph on the Autobahn

And it also meant seeing how the system reacts to road works and shifting lane markings. Ther the system still needs a lot of work. It tries to follow the new markings, but as soon as you try to cross the old markings, the car panics and basically doesn’t know what to do. This is the point where you definitely need to take control over the car. Otherwise you will end up in a very bad situation.

Driving in the rain doesn’t pose that much of a problem, as long as the rain isn’t too heavy and the car can still see the lane markings clearly. I’ve had section where I was in complete darkness on wet roads with light rain and the system kept working as if it were a bright and sunny day. Both with oncoming traffic shining their light on the wet roads (even on divided highways) the camera couldn’t see the markings anymore and the system prompted me to take control of the car, which I did.

Conclusion

In the end I drove about 1600 km on this trip and of those, at least 1000km were on Autopilot, meaning I let the car drive me. There were only a handfull of occasions where the car prompted me to take control or where it paniced and urged me to take control. All other situations (curves, exits, lane splits) were either handled beautifully by the car or I noticed up front the car would have trouble navigating the situation, so I got ready and took control the instant I sensed it could react incorrectly. My respect for and understanding of the system has grown exponentially during this trip.

All in all, AutoPilot is a fabulous system and keeping in mind this is still considered beta, I cannot wait until we get the final version downloaded to our cars of the future. I applaud Tesla for taking this brave step towards full autonomy and for not waiting until we get the complete autonomous car, like Google tries to do. Instead, the have a step-by-step appoach and that means that we can already benefit of a lot of the coolness, whil at the same time Tesla gets about 1 million miles of data back from the car to keep improving the system. That sounds like a win-win situation to me!

Should this article persuade you to take an interest in buying or leasing a Tesla, feel free to use my referral code (or to give my code to somebody you know) so you can save $1000/€1000 on your new car: http://ts.la/steven1007

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